Much has
been written about my great, great, great grandmother, Jenny Wiley, as
her story of capture, captivity and escape has been told historically and
traditionally. Each family branch has kept the story alive with slightly
different versions, but it is basically the same. The books and printed
versions of the story varies, too.

A Kentucky State
Park near Paintsville, Johnson County containing Dewey Lake has been named
the Jenny Wiley State Park in her honor. An overpass across Kentucky
Route 23 has been named after her as well. A marker has been placed at
the overlook of Harmon's Station, where she hailed the inhabitants to bring
a raft across from their side of the Big Sandy to her after her escape
from the Indians. A marker on Route 23 directs those who wish to visit
her grave at River, Kentucky, and there is a marker that directs any who
would wish to visit the rock house or cave where she was believed to have
been held captive.

There Is an annual
Jenny Wiley Festival held in Prestonsburg, Floyd County, the second weekend
of October each year when the town assumes a carnival atmosphere with the
courthouse and many businesses closing as a parade is held and music fills
the air. The Jenny Wiley Association meets at this time for food and fellowship
as they trade family stories and history. There are many points of interest
in the area including the cabin home of Loretta Lynn. Two of Jenny's granddaughters
married Webb brothers and two married Smith brothers. I am descended
from Jane who married Richard Williamson and lived in Wyoming County, West
Virginia and whose daughter, Marinda Catherine, married William Thomas
Smith. The census of 1850 show Jane as being 55 years old, showing she
could not have been the first born after Jenny's escape or at least, the
result of Jenny being pregnant at the time as some believe.

During the summer
months there is a theatrical production telling the Jenny Wiley Story as
a musical at the amphitheater near the park lodge that attracts many tourists.Although many stories
have been written about Jenny Wiley, and have given accounts in newspapers
and magazines, we know accurate records were not kept during that period
of the early settlement of the region. Many records that were kept give
conflicting accounts and many records have been destroyed by fires. The
little everyday things we would like to know about the way our ancestors
lived could only be told by people of the time and early folks were too
busy living to tell the small details. Those who could give accurate details
are long since dead and they were often misquoted to make a good story
sound better.

As we compare
stories and try to sort out the inaccuracies that have been printed,we want to learn
the truth about our early ancestors and the region that is so rich in the
history of this countries early settlement. It is easy to be interested
In others who were involved in Jenny's story.

Finding it hard to
come across any new, verifiable information about Jenny, I know she had
innumerable descendants who would like as much as much of a whole picture
of her life as we to provide. I have tried to draw a picture of the
men she came In contact with and who might have been an Influence in her
life. Some of my information is rumor, some has been written to be truth
and some is documented information. Since I know that any printed word
is often taken for truth I will welcome corrections by anyone who has proof
of a different version.

The father of Jenny
Wiley was Hezekiah Sellards, the grandson of John Peter Sellards.
Hezekiah’s wife's name is not known, nor is her nationality. There
has been speculation that she might have been a Brevard, as her son Adam
was given the name Adam Brevard Wiley. The Sellards were Scotch Presbyterians
who came to this country at the time the conventors, or the followers of
John Knox, who taught that souls were saved by God’s grace, not by their
good works, were fleeing the old country to escape persecution. Many Irish
were fleeing at this time, also. That might have been why Thomas Wiley’s
family, who were Irish, came to Virginia, too. Many of Knox’s followers
were sold as bound slaves to the ship’s captains who then sold them into
bondage once they arrived in the colonies.

Evidentially the
Sellards had been prosperous in the settlements as Hezekiah is said to
have been a merchant in Pennsylvania. It is believed that he lost his wife
and some of his children before he came to the frontier. I do not know
where Jenny was born but it is rumored that his second wife was an Indian
and many have said that Jenny was part native American. It is thought that
the son that is named Andrew in one of the books about Jenny was nicknamed
"Batt: - the one who was killed at the time she was captured and her children
murdered, was his son by the Indian marriage.

Thomas Wiley, Jenny’s
husband, had an interesting history. He, Robert Wiley and Robert
Wiley Jr. were first brought to my attention as Rangers fighting in Dunsmore’s
Wars. He fought under George Rogers Clark in 1774, when Clark was building
his military reputation. (Clark is my husband Howard’s ancestor through
his great grandmother, Rachael Clark, who was born in Vincennes, Indiana
in 1835). I believe Robert Wiley was his brother, and Robert Jr. his nephew,
as boys became men at an early age in those days. He left a brother,
John, in the New River section of Giles County, Va. in a section that is
now known as Tazwell County. I believe, but have no proof, that Phillip
Wiley of that place, was their father.

A historic account
of the French and Indian War tells of their returning from battle by way
of the Big Sandy River with Captain Daniel Smith’s troops (my Smith family?)
Smith was in charge of Fincastle’s militia. The book, “Virginia’s Colonial
Soldiers” gives Thomas’s service record as participating in the French
and Indian War and list him as a private. Since the soldiers were granted
their land in Virginia according to their rank, he was eligible to draw
fifty acres of land. His grant was in the Walker Creek section.In one account he
was listed as reporting for muster with Colonel Preston’s military group
and listed with twenty-nine other men from an area bounded by Rich Creek
Mountain under Preston. Thomas, Robert, Alexander and John Wiley were listed
on the Mason County, West Virginia web site as having fought in the Battle
of Point Pleasant, with the Indian Chief, Cornstalk. (Auldin Williamson,
Jane Wiley’s father-in-law, fought there, too).

Another man who was
important in Jenny’s life was her brother-in-law, John Border. It
was John who had ridden by the Wiley cabin in the evening, a short time
before a band of Indians from various tribes invaded her home and killed
her brother and children, taking her and a small son captive. It was said
they had mistaken her cabin as being that of Matthias Harmon whom they
hated, feared and hoped to kill. John had tried to persuade her to
go to his home where she would be welcomed by his wife who was her sister,
Sally. John knew there were indians in the vicinity and nephew Thomas was
away from home exchanging the ginseng they had harvested for the things
they would need for the approaching winter.

It was October and
a drizzling rain was falling in the evening but Jenny wanted to finish
the piece of weaving she had in the loom before she left. They were dressed
to leave when the savages invaded the home. Borders remembered later his
horse had shied at his approach to the cabin. When she hadn't reached his
cabin by dark, he organized the search for her after he had seen the smoke
of her burning cabin and found the children's bodies. He was sorry he had
not Insisted more strongly on her going with him.

One early historian
reports that Borders was a Prussian soldier hired by the British. Another
report is that he was an English soldier under Cornwallis in the Revolution.
When the defeat of the "redcoats" was imminent it is said he decided that
a free country and land almost free for the taking was better than returning
home. Being equipped as a soldier with a gun and perhaps a horse, he had
as much or more than many of the other early settlers had at the time.

John married Elizabeth
(Sally), one of Hezekiah Sellard’s daughters, Jenny’s sister, and they
had a family of their own by the time Jenny was captured. Later they decided
to move their family to the Scioto River Valley in Ohio. When they had
reached the Big Sandy River Valley section that is now Johnson County,
Kentucky, John became ill and died, leaving Sally with four boys and four
girls. The family settled near the mouth of Tom’s Creek where they
remained for a time. Perhaps this is the reason for the Wiley’s to leave
their home in Virginia and relocate in this section of Kentucky near her
sister.

The Borders later
moved to Lawrence County where the family became renowned as farmers and
merchants. The youngest son, Archibald, became a well known judge in that
region of Kentucky and Virginia. Although he did not enter politics to
any great extent during Jenny’s lifetime, his many other business ventures
were enough to make her proud of him. He was born in 1798 and married
Jane Preston in 1820. Besides operating a big plantation in Lawrence
County, he had a general store, a shoe factory, and a saddle shop. He developed
a big timber business and furnished tanning bark for the whole region.
He first became a justice of the peace and later a judge of the county
court until 1858. He built a steamboat, “The Big Sandy”, in 1880 and I
am sure it saw service during the Civil War. His support was for
the North during the war and he died in 1880.

During her captivity
Jenny was treated better by some of the savages than by others. It has
been said that Chief Benge, a Cherokee warrior, was sometimes with the
band and claimed her as his possession. David Webb, a Wiley descendant,
wrote in the book, “The Webbs of Bear Wallow Ridge” that she was pregnant
by Benge when she escaped and that the daughter Jane is that child.
I think the records disprove that. He tells of Benge’s death in North
Carolina on a certain date but the National Geographic had an article about
Benge leading a band of Indians on the ‘Trail of Tears” to Oklahoma after
that date. There is much conflicting history about this period of
American history. It is rumored that she was traded to a Shawnee
known as “Cap John.”

It was the Indian,
John, who spoke English and had taught Jenny some of their language, that
led a group on her trail and was close behind her when she reached the
Big Sandy and the safety of Harmon’s Station. It is said that he stood
on the river bank and shouted, “Honor, Jenny, Honor’, for in his mind she
was his possession.

Although I found
a marriage license issued to a Thomas Wiley and another woman during the
time Jenny was a captive, I do not know any more than that, except that
Jenny and Thomas were reunited and had another family of children: Hezekiah,
Jane, Nancy, William, and Adam.

In her later years
she made her home with Adam and it was an elderly Adam that has been quoted
by many who wrote the accounts that have later been attributed as being
factual. One fact that has escaped us is the burial place of Thomas Wiley.
The burial place of Jenny is well marked and we know he was not buried
beside her, but although we are told he is buried in the vicinity, we don’t
know where.